Saturday, October 25, 2008

LTTE leaders planning to flee Wanni - The Hindu reports

The Union Home Ministry has asked emigration authorities in south India, counting Kerala, to be on the lookout for release Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) operatives fleeing the hostility in Sri Lanka. Official sources said the efficient lookout notice for LTTE operatives had the particulars of more than 3,000 persons, counting in some cases, their photographs. They said it was likely that wanted LTTE men could crossover to India from Sri Lanka in fishing boats posing as refugees or fishermen, get fake Indian passports and journey to the U.K, Europe, Singapore, Malaysia or Canada pretending as Indian citizens. Emigration establishment said that a Sharjah-based row, having middlemen in Tamil Nadu (mainly in Thirunelveli and Rameswaram) and Kerala, was duplicating Indian passports for use by against the law emigrants. Officials said these racketeers were duplicating even the latest "machine readable" Indian passports. They used an approximately undetectable method to substitute the digitally compulsory photographs on the passports without tampering the hidden security features on the thin film cover them. Racket unearthed The level of the racket came to light this year with mass departure officials here detaining 41 passengers (till October 21) on the accuse of possessing false Indian passports. The identity theft on 27 such passports was approved out by deftly substituting the photograph of the sole holder with that of the impersonator. In 10 passports, vital pages of the documents, counting the VISA stamped leafs, were fake. Three of the suspects were transport Indian passports forged in their total. Those under arrest were Indians working in the Gulf whose passports had been confiscated by their employers for one cause or the other. They said they had bought the fake passports for Rs.25,000 and upwards for evasion from deprived working conditions. Fake passports The fake passports second-hand for identity theft were more often than not of persons who had travelled to the Gulf on visit visas and then became illegal immigrants there after their visa era expired. Law enforcers said the LTTE could be using the armed forces of such Indian passport duplicators to help Sri Lankan Tamils fleeing the conflict zone leave your country to other countries. Fund raisers It, in return, is known to insist from emigrants a sizeable chunk of their yearly earnings to be salaried to the organisation's fund raisers in overseas countries. They said the LTTE used its sympathisers in India to obtain fuel, medicines, supplies, welding gear, vehicle spares, tools, metal balls and chemicals (that could be used for making bombs). The officials said Kochi, Vizhinjam in Kerala and Kollencode in Tamil Nadu were the newly up-and-coming procurement points for the LTTE in the south. The supplies are shipped in fishing boats to militant-controlled areas in Sri Lanka. The LTTE allegedly uses the same route for smuggling heroin (sourced from across India's border and opium unlawfully diverted from sure approved farms in the country) for financial support its military movement. Refugee camps The police are monitoring the performance in three Sri Lankan person in exile camps in Kerala (at Gavi in Pathanamthitta, Kozhivila on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu edge and one in Wayanad) in view of the better than before fighting in Sri Lanka.